Celebrating Easter Long Ago

Spring is such a joyful time of year when everything renews itself around us.  Lilly My Cat tries to "renew" itself with varied posts.  I have tried to make my blog a bit diversified (like a stock portfolio, haha).  I know there's lot of people who don't knit or crochet but maybe they like history, travel, cats, or whatever.  I collect lots of things, I like to make a lot of things and I like to decorate in my own style.  (shhh don't tell me daughter and she thinks my style is crazy eclectic!) 

 So, on a fun, lighter note, I hope you will enjoy this little look back into what I think was a delightful period of time...

The other night I was trying to go to sleep and thinking to myself what can I write a post about.  Easter was popping into my mind .....

A few years ago my dear daughter gave me these lovely antique postcards.  They are from France and date from 1907 & 1914. 

 I think this is such a unique design with the saying of  " My Heart Opens to you".....

The card is written to Mademoiselle Elise Cheyroux, Collanges, near Meyssac, Correze (the town is now called Collanges-Meyssac, in the Limousin Region of France)

She writes....

My Dear Elise,

I see you're still enjoying yourself and you're quite right, because good times can be followed by bad times.  I received a letter from Edouard, but I'll think he'll be coming at Pentecost*. I often think it will soon be time to go spend a few days with you others - that will lift my spirits. I'm not like you, I don't have a lot of things to amuse me. You must have heard that Cecile is getting married on May 4th.  Elie and Jeanne will probably both go to the wedding.  Do tell me if you've bought something nice to wear. I send you all love and kisses.  A comfort, waiting til I can see you all.  Be sure to give your fat Papa a kiss from me!

Marie

*Note:  Pentecost falls 50 days after Easter.  In 1907, it was on May 19th.

I wish you could see this card pictured below in person as I believe it's been hand colored.  Don't you just love the dress she's wearing?

This Happy Easter card reads as follows:
My dear Suzanne,
I received your kind card yesterday.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  It really made me happy, and as I don't want to take too long to reply, I'm writing back straight away tonight.  My parents are in good health; they're asking me to say hello to you.  You said that you went to the airfield (?) last Sunday.  Lucky you to be able to go on a jaunt so far away!  As for me, I'm finding this place more and more annoying - oh well, too bad.  I saw your grey suit, it's very pretty and very well made.  I can't think of anything new to tell you for the time being, so I'll leave off here my dear Suzanne, sending you lots of hugs and kisses.  Your friend, who's thinking of you,
Augustine
Write back soon, will you?

I believe this one too has been hand colored.  Doesn't the model have beautiful, long hair? 

I wish to thank my dear friend, Christine at Writing from Scotland who was kind enough to translate these cards for me.  If you have a chance please visit her wonderful blog. 

As for my memories of Easter long ago, I remember a particular Easter Sunday when I was about 6 years old.  We lived in a small town in Idaho in a very modern ranch style home (I think they now call these homes by the fancy name of "mid century").  My mother had grown up during the depression and she did not like anyone old or antique.  Well, back then it was the fad to buy a live pastel colored baby chick for Easter.  Yes!  a real live baby chick ( I know it's totally improper now).  I received mine that year - it was in a shoe box.  I remember being on the front doorstep playing with it when I turned around for just a minute.  I looked back down and it was gone.  Disappeared...no where in sight.  Oh, I was so upset.  I'm sure I cried.  My Mom thinks it was the neighbor's Siamese cat who grabbed it.  I'll never know.  But on a bright note; my two cousins also received baby chicks.  They lived out in the country and their baby chicks grew into healthy chickens who loved to run after you and nip you on the leg!

I also received a new Easter dress and shoes each year.  My Mom was fond of that voile flocked fabric that had puffy like designs on it.  I can't remember the name.  And, I must have liked yellow because I never recall having a pink or blue dress.  A lovely pale shade of yellow....with black patent shoes.  My Mom loved black patent.  She always wore black patent high heels.  To this date, I'm not fond of black patent....I don't know why as my dear Mom was a wonderful person.

Here's a look back at some of my Easter photos of long ago....

 Photo above is from 1956 - we still lived on the farm in Washington

 Photo above is from 1958 taken in my grandparents backyard in Idaho

This is a photo of my Mom and I taken in 1960 (the same year I lost my baby chick)

This is me in 1961....see the ranch style homes of the 60's in the background

I had to rummage through the boxes in the garage to find these photos.

I hope wherever you are that you have a Blessed Easter and peace.  I'll be taking a little break from this blog for a few days but will be back soon with some new posts that I hope you will enjoy.

Happy Easter,

Pat 

I'm joining the following link parties:
Happy Friday at Planet Penny
Share Your Cup Thursday...

The Art of Homemaking Mondays....

Handmade Monday
Create With Joy....
Ivy and Elephants...
Home and Garden Thursday.....

Scavenger Hunt

I'm joining in today for the first time at Made with Love scavenger hunt.  I'm excited to meet some new blog friends.  I hope you enjoy my pictures....Lilly sends her love :)

Circle:

"Circular" water fountain built in 1740 on the grounds of the Hagia Sophia.

Card:

 "Card" describing the Chateau de Lassay in France.

Window:

 Lovely "window" at the train station in Budapest, Hungary.

Art:

 "Art" in a coffee cup from a fabulous coffee shop near my home.

Skyline:

The beautiful, gray "skyline" of my beloved Seattle.

Favorite word:

 My first favorite "word" is Oliver (my grandson), soon to be followed by Sadie!

Movement:

 "Movement" of the ferry crossing the Bosphorus.

Bathroom:

 I cheated a little on "bathroom".....this is an outside faucet in Istanbul.

Car:

 Refreshing rain soaked street with cars.....

Plate:

 This is a "plate" of stuffed eggplant I ate in Istanbul.

Something you made:

 This is the stripey blanket I made for my little grandson, Oliver.

Whatever you Want:

Wow!  After downloading all these photos and adding catchy captions, "whatever I want" is a glass of tea!  

It's been fun to be a part of this scanvenger hunt.  I hope to participate next time!

Goodbye my dear friends,
Pat

Palm Sunday at Crystal Cove Beach

I just wanted to write a short post today to say "hello" and share with you some photos of a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  We spent the afternoon at Crystal Cove State Park.  It's located off the Pacific Coast Highway between Newport Beach, CA and Laguna Beach, CA.

Our little grandson was in a church procession today and after church we headed to the beach for lunch.  There was quite a crowd since the weather was so warm.  Here's some photos I thought you might enjoy...

 We had wanted to eat here at the Beachcomber but the wait time was so long so we climbed back up the stairs to Ruby's Shake Shack...

The view was even better and the waves were really kicking up today..

We ventured back down to the beach after lunch...

Crystal Cove is a historic beach community dating back 100 years.  It is now a state park with lots of little, old, quaint cottages that you can rent..

Here's a peek inside of one that set up as a type of museum from with furnishings from years ago....do you see that large flowery print fabric?  I once lived in a home that had drapes made of pattern....

This is the little inlet from the ocean....do you see the beautiful nasturtiums in bloom?

Some seafaring artifacts from long ago....

The view from the other side of the little inlet....

I stayed in the shade while they walked on the beach....

And, I so enjoyed looking at this little succulent garden.....

I hope you had have a great weekend wherever you may be.  All is well here at Lilly My Cat.  I look forward to writing again soon.

With my best wishes to all of you,

Pat :)

Linking at the following parties:
Handmade Monday.... 

Create with Joy....

♫ ♪ ♬ ...here comes Peter Cottontail with a Knit Rabbit Pattern Link

Easter is just around the corner.  For the past two years, I have knitted a bunny rabbit for my little grandson, Oliver.  Here's a link to last year's bunny.  This year, I wanted to do something a little different.

Meet Mr. Bunny.........

 He insisted to sit at the table.  I'm having a dinner party this weekend and I had so much fun setting up the table.

Mr. Bunny was made from some leftover worsted weight yarn.  

 This is such an easy pattern to knit.  You will need the following:

  

* leftover worsted weight yarn in color of your choice
* size 4 DPN

 * stuffing for his body

  * large tapestry needle and small scraps of yarn for face

Now for the pattern, it can be found  here on Ravelry.  It's knit in the round on double pointed needles.  You can knit it in any color you wish. Note: I knit his ears in two separate pieces since I wanted a contrasting color for the inside.

I love his little cottontail!

I'm afraid he thinks he's the guest of honor.....

He's getting hungry....so I had better go and fix his dinner.

It's not too late to knit this for someone's Easter basket.  

As for dinner, here's a peek at my menu:

You may like a little explanation of the menu:
Sanbusak is a meat filled pastry.  It's popular in the middle east.  I used to make the dough but now I buy it ready made.  I saute ground beef with onion and season with salt, pepper, allspice and pine nuts.

My recipe for kabob hala can be found here on my blog.

My recipe for vegetarian mousakka can be found here on my blog.

I'm excited to make this recipe for Magic Cake as I just found it this week!

For my fruit salad, I'm using strawberries, banana, mango, oranges, pear, and grapes and I add a little bit of orange blossom water (middle east specialty) along with some coconut.
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It's always a joy to hear from you.  Feel free to comment if you wish.  Until next time, happy crafting everyone!

my best to you,

Pat (& Lilly, too!)

(I just couldn't resist this picture of Lilly sleeping with her head on the pillow!)

I'm linking to the following:
Handmade Monday.... 

The Art of Homemaking Mondays....

Wordless Wednesday..
Crafting On...
Between Naps on the Porch
Yarn Along with Ginny....
Planet Penny's Happy Friday
Share Your Cup Thursday.... 

Needles & Nook

Greetings my dear friends.  Spring is almost here but I feel as though we didn't even have winter as we just got over having a heat wave with temps in the 90's!

I want to thank everyone who read my reflections during lent.  Your kind comments really warmed my heart.  Speaking of warm, here's the scarf that I'm currently knitting......

It's a Churchmouse Yarn pattern.  At first, I really didn't enjoy knitting this pattern but since it's a two row repeat, it goes by very fast. The pattern can be found here.

As for reading, I am so enjoying this book:

It's a non fiction book about the Essex whaling ship that set out in 1819 from Nantucket on a whale hunt.  A few years ago, my husband and I visited Nantucket and saw some stately old homes that once had belonged to whale ship captains.  It's a fascinating read into history of long ago.

I am joining in at:
Frontier Dreams  
Create with Joy....
Yarn Along with Ginny...
Happy Friday at Planet Penny...

Please don't be shy to stop by and say "hello".  And, you are most than welcome to click on the buttons to follow along and see what is happening here at Lilly My Cat.

Have a wonderful day,
Pat

Reflections During Lent

Hello my dear friends.  Today I thought I would share with you something a little bit different since we are in lent.  It's a season that is near and dear to my heart.  So, I'm going to share a history story that takes place in my wonderful parish in Tacoma, Washington.

 

 

The little photo above is a picture of Holy Trinity Church that is located in Wilkeson, Washington. (Do you see the blue onion dome?  It reminds me of the churches in Russia.)   Wilkeson was a coal mining town and sits in the western foothills under the backdrop of beautiful Mount Rainier.   Back in it's day it used to be quite the town due to coal mining.  But, like many things, all that changed.

Holy Trinity was consecrated back in 1902 by Bishop Tikhon*, who was head of the Russian Orthodox Church in America.  It originally ministered to a variety of parishioners including Uniates (Byzantine rite Catholics), Greeks and Slavs.  As the years went by and the membership declined, there was not a full time priest for this parish.  All that changed when Fr. John Pierce was assigned as the parish priest in 1985.  At that time, I don't think there had been a full time priest for over 60 years at Holy Trinity!   Fr. John was a newly ordained priest.  With his help, hard work and dedication, Holy Trinity was revitalized from a handful of parishioners to a vibrant, growing church.

Holy Trinity now is on the Washington State Register of Historic Places.  It has been conserved throughout all these years to retain it's original character.  And, it is under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church of America.

 

Above is a photo of the interior of Holy Trinity.  It's a very small church.

Below is a photo of the original flooring of Holy Trinity:

After Fr. John arrived in 1985, he was able to breath new life into this parish and as a result, his ministry helped establish another parish in Tacoma, Washington. This new parish was named Holy Resurrection.  Holy Resurrection grew so fast that Holy Trinity church is now used for special holy days only.

   

The church bells outside after a beautiful, wintry snowfall.......

 

 This is the interior of Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in America located in Tacoma, WA.

I came to Holy Resurrection as a convert to the orthodox faith.  My family and I had attended services at a liturgical church for years.  We loved the formal church service and it was a great place to raise our children.  But, after many years, our church started to change and we did too.

Every year our local Greek Orthodox church held a Greek Festival. It was a fun event to attend every year; listen to Greek music, eat delicious Greek food and buy all kinds of goodies.  One year it caught my attention that they offered "inquirer's classes" for those interested in the Orthodox faith.  My husband had been raised Coptic Orthodox.  So, I started going to the classes. It was so enjoyable and I learned a lot.

When it came time to think about joining a church, I had an acquaintance who attended Holy Resurrection.  I didn't know her well but I knew a little about her church since I had donated some funds to their building fund years earlier.  My husband and I first attended services at Holy Resurrection in May of 2004 and we were hooked so to speak.  We had found our new church.

Throughout those years, I grew in my faith journey. Holy Resurrection was so unique in that everyone was the same; whether you were rich, poor, young, old, any background, any ethnicity, everyone was treated equal.  And the parish consisted of both cradle orthodox and converts like me.  We did everything together as a parish.

One winter, a member of the parish was working on a thesis for his masters.  He came across a story concerning a priest who had ministered at Holy Trinity during the early 1900's.  His name was Father Andreades.  There was a story of him riding horseback from Wilkeson to Tacoma and taking a boat over to Gig Harbor to give communion to a sick parishioner from Croatia.  There was large group of Croations who had immigrated to Gig Harbor (it was known as a fishing village back then). After all those many, many years, Fr. Andreades grave was discovered in a tiny graveyard in Gig Harbor.  Our church held a memorial service for him like 100 years after he had served.  It was so touching that Holy Trinity's lifeline was still alive and progressing.

This is a photo of the Narrows Bridge connecting Tacoma with Gig Harbor.  This bridge(s) did not exist when Fr. Andreades headed off to Gig Harbor.  They had a ferry service back then.

(This picture was taken from my home in Gig Harbor)

*Bishop Tikhon returned to Russian and became the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917.  He was against the Bolsheviks and the harm they were inflicting on the Tsar and the church.  He granted autonomy to what became the Orthodox Church in America and to other Russian churches that had been established outside of Russia due to the revolution.  One of these churches is the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia or ROCOR.  ROCOR was not in communion with Moscow for over 70 years.  In 2007 the canonical link was restored between these churches. Metropolitan Tikhon died in 1924 and was canonized in 1981.  It's amazing to think that this is the same priest who consecrated Holy Trinity over 100 years ago. 

As I said, those were great years.  I moved to California in 2010 and had to leave my church.  I thought I would continue on my journey but I could not find another Holy Resurrection.  I have tried and tried but to no avail.  I still have my faith but right now my church going is in limbo.  But, I do have these wonderful memories that will last a lifetime.

As my son told me, "Mom, maybe you just had a few years of total bliss and now you will go on to something else".  It's hard for me to let go and move on and change.  So, this lenten season is a bit different for me.  I know the Lord has not forgotten me and that there is a church out there somewhere, sometime, that I can once again be a part of.  Until then, I can reflect and enjoy the many years of wonderful memories I had at Holy Resurrection.

I hope you have enjoyed this little bit of history.  I hope I have not offended anyone writing about "church" since this was not my intent.  I love history and this is a little snapshot of that.

Have a great weekend!  It's suppose to be in the high 80's/90 degrees here the next few days!  That's a bit too warm for March.

Take care and I look forward to hearing from you when you have the time.

blessings,

Pat

I'm linking up at Planet Penny's Happy Friday
and....Handmade Monday

and...The Art of Home Making Mondays.....

Ripple Blanket with a Twist

Hello my friends.  I hope you've had a good week?  Everything is going well here at Lilly My Cat.  I can finally sit back and relax my brain a bit.  My problem is that I anticipate my work that is to come.....and it seems to get worse with age :(  and this was one of those weeks.

My husband and I have rental properties.  We've always had rental properties for almost 38 years.  It's just the norm for us over all these years.  My husband taught for years at a university before taking a job managing a large plant but his hobby is real estate.  I worked too but also I took care of the rentals.   It meant painting, cleaning, and the never ending bookkeeping.  When we moved five years ago to California, we hired a manager. The first time ever in all those years.  But, it's hard to let go and I still want to micro manage.  Anyway, one of the rentals that became vacant was here in California and I had the honor to take out my paint clothes and wear them for two days!  Yah...and I still remember how to paint.  I really enjoy painting - it's the cleaning I don't like.

My husband told me I was crazy to do this myself as he said we should have hired to have it done.  Yes, we could of, but would they have done it to suit me?  I don't think so.  But now that it's over, it gives me a feeling of satisfaction.  And, hopefully the new tenant will appreciate our work.

 I wish I could be like Lilly.  Nothing disturbs her!

But on a fun note, I want to share with you a blanket I completed a couple of weeks ago.  It's called Jacob's Ladder and the link to the pattern can be found here.

I purchased the yarn in Istanbul when I was there last year.  I used 13 skeins.  It was a fun blanket to crochet.

I bought 13 skeins; 1 skein for border, four skeins of dark gray, four skeins of light gray and four skeins of blue. (this is what I had leftover at the end)

And, here is the finished blanket.  As I was crocheting along, I "twisted" the ladder as I went and secured the ends with some scrap yarn.

 You can see the "twisted" columns running the length of the blanket.  These are made by the "chain 10" that you do throughout the pattern.

Here's a close up of the "twist".  I twisted one of the chain 10 loops to the left and twisted the next one to the right, etc. It's gives it an interesting pattern.

Here's a close up of the border.  I just designed my own border.  I would have made it a bit more lacy but it's for my son-in-law and I didn't want it to look too frilly.

It's a fun pattern to make and it really goes by quite fast.  I know the colors I used are not bright but they do look nice when it's finished and you can see the whole blanket.

What am I working on now?  I'm knitting with a beautiful pink yarn for my little granddaughter who's expected to arrive this summer.  And, there's a pair of socks in queue, too!

Thank you to everyone who read my crazy post from last week.....I hope you have a fabulous weekend and I will be back soon.  Lilly sends you her best meows!

Enjoy your day,
Pat

Link Parties:
I'm joining Happy Friday at Planet Penny and Handmade Monday at Lucy Blossom Crafts and....Frontier Dreams and Yarn Along